Day 1: Life is Short

Airports are wonderful places. Unless you are a severely introverted, anxious, claustrophobic, impatient, germophobic, pteromerhanophobe. Luckily I am none of these things. But layovers, long lines, pat downs, delays, and a definite lack of quiet time can wear down the nerves of even the most collected and seasoned traveler. At times it seems like the best thing to do is just to take a dose of zzzquil (or your sleeping aid of choice) put in your headphones and just zone out the rest of the world for however long. If I wasn't traveling with a university group where the class has a policy against the use of headphones and social media when we are in situations where we could be bonding, then spacing out to some bluegrass music or with the latest episodes of The Walking Dead would have been my course of action for most of the trip. However, an unexpectedly wise coffee encouraged me to reevaluate how I think about extensive air travel and life in general. While waiting for my travel mates to return from getting their over-priced airport coffees and breakfast foods, I noticed the slogan on my Caribou Iced Chai Tea Latte. "Life is short. Stay awake for it." As a recent college graduate who suffered from severe sleep deprivation for the last 4 years, my instinctual thought response was "Psh. Are you kidding?!?!? I need all the sleep I can get!" But then there was the revelation that, at least for me, this quote wasn't about sleep at all. It was about being aware and present in each and every moment of your day. In my daily life I had reached a point where far too often, I would just let life pass me by, content to be an outsider stewing in my own little world, detached from my surroundings. It brough me back to a quote from the recent commencement ceremony, at which my loving (yet stressful) university thrust me out into "the real world". The quote was simply, "Wherever you are, be all there" and while the author's name now escapes me, I believe he must have been the inspiration for the Caribou coffee slogan. Or maybe its not at all. Maybe being present in the moment is just something we have all forgotten how to do, how to appreciate even the mundane and tiresome moments and the feeling of being bored. Or maybe I'm just an overzealous college graduate, who freed from her bounds of undergraduate servitude, now reads too deeply into coffee slogans. Whatever the reason or rhyme, this slogan struck me and I hope to follow it as much as I can for the duration of this Rocky Mountain adventure and for the start of my post-collegiate life.
So friends, family, framily, aquaintences, and even complete strangers, welcome to my renewed and revitalized outlook on life. I will try my best to be present in every moment, even the unpleasant ones, and allow myself to revel in just being a living, breathing "carbaceous sack of water" in the 21st century. I will step out of my comfort zone and soak up all the experiences my incredible life has to offer. This is my fresh start. I am alert. I am alive. I am awake*.

*To those who may be concerned about my health, I shall assuage your fears by noting that this does in no way mean that I will not be sleeping, as that would be a terrible idea, and I would likely start having hallucinations within the first 48 hours (if past experiences hold true). I will nap and sleep as needed, but it will not be a sleep to make the time go by faster or merely because I am bored. It will be sleep for the sake of rest.*

So with that lengthy philoshopical introduction, here is a segment that I hope to do each day:

Extra-ordinary Observations
1. The seat at the very back of the plane next to the water closet isn't actually too bad, especially if you like sleeping with white noise (and the flight is fairly short (this is likely a crucial criterion for this observation to remain true)).
2. Ginger ale and Biscoff cookies is quite possibly the most satisfying inflight snack, even if the Ginger ale tastes sweeter than the cookies. In the future I may fly Delta just so I can indulge in the delicious cookies.
3. Longish layovers aren't too bad, as long as you have new friends to spend time with and people to watch.
4. It doesn't take long for a group of people to establish everyone's role in the group. See http://kjmeasom.blogspot.com for further explanation.
5. Inspiration can be found in the oddest of places...even from the container of an over-priced caffinated beverage.

<Kathryn and Pheobe fiddling with technology. Clicking their names will take you to their blogs so you can check out their thoughts and experiences.

Photogenic Geology Professors

We thought it would be fun to promote our blogs at the Caribou coffee in the Twin Cities airport

First Glance of the Black Hills?